


Just A Thought

by Wanderbird



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Feels, Post-Episode: s02e08 Keeping It Together, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8551123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderbird/pseuds/Wanderbird
Summary: Oneshot about Garnet's issues following their discovery of the fusion experiments.





	

“Garnet?” The sand hissed as Pearl sat beside her old friend. The waves slid gently along the beach in front of them, leaving a few stranded tendrils of seaweed behind. Pearl absently plucked one up and threw it back into the sea with a little toss. “Garnet?” she frowned and wiped the ocean gunk off her hand. “You’ve been out here a lot, lately. What is it?”  
A pause. “The gem experiments.”  
Pearl gave her a confused look. “What about them?”  
Garnet opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it. Finally she spoke, as a tear trickled out from under her visor. “I never told you what they were.”  
Pearl turned her gaze back out to the horizon, shifting uncomfortably. “I asked Steven, but he said you wanted to be the one to explain.”  
“They’re fusions.”  
“What?!” Pearl glanced back at her friend, brow puzzled. “Corrupted gems can’t fuse with each other. Can they?”  
“They’re not—corrupted.” Garnet’s hand reached up and grasped the visor with tense fingers, tearing it from her face to look away from the other gem. Another tear leaked out of her center eye, slipping down the side of her nose. “They were Crystal gems, once, shattered into pieces. And the Homeworld gems collected the shards, and glued them together. Forced them together. Forced them to fuse!” The hand holding the visor tensed, crushing the glass between its fingers.  
The shock was evident on Pearl’s face. “But… why? Homeworld’s likely running low on resources, sure, but this?” She finally seemed to register Garnet’s expression. “Garnet… I can see why you’re upset about this, but what can we do about it, besides bubble whatever of these… things we can find?”  
One hand punched the sand in a sudden bout of fury. “Nothing! We can’t do anything! We can’t even separate the ones we have found, we don’t know how!” Garnet snarled, then wilted. “And every time I blink, every time I’m trying to poof some monster, I can see them, right before my eyes. All our friends, all the ones whose gems we couldn’t find or didn’t collect, separated from themselves, the lost and lonely pieces forced to fuse with other pieces just as incomplete, but not their own—“ one trembling hand rose to cover her eyes as she shook her head. “Bismuth, Topaz, Emerald, Carnelian, they’re all in there somewhere. I don’t know what would be worse, to be stuck with the partial remains of a beloved friend or a bunch of strangers.”  
Pearl swallowed. “So that’s why you were so insistent that we poof and bubble every one of those… things. You must realize, though, there’s no way we’ll ever manage to get all of them. Thousands of gems died here in the war, and if Homeworld is doing this to their own casualties, too… It’s impossible.”  
Garnet gave a bitter laugh. “Of course. But we won’t even have a chance if we don’t get started.”  
Pearl tried not to stare at her friend. “There’s no chance anyway.”  
Silence.  
“I’m sorry, Garnet, but it’s true. If we spend all of our time going after these fusion experiments, nothing else will ever get done. But corrupted gems will still cause trouble, and so will artifacts like the seastone. We can’t.”  
Garnet was staring at the ground. “I know.”  
“When I first figured out what had happened to those poor shards,” Garnet continued, “and the big one popped up, I—I froze. I couldn’t go on, I started falling apart. Ruby and Sapphire, they couldn’t stand it! I couldn’t stand it! Just the sight of the thing would’ve broken me apart if Steven hadn’t been there, hadn’t reminded me to protect him. And if I fell apart… Maybe you and Amethyst would’ve arrived in time. Or maybe… not.” She shuddered. The hand on her face slipped to dig into her hair.  
“Garnet…”  
“What?”  
Pearl bit her lip. “Do you remember that… thing, that place you showed Rose and I, when we were first learning how to fuse, and we kept getting flashbacks and such whenever we tried to fight?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Well, maybe you should go there and, and work things out. It might help, or at least help you cope.”  
Garnet’s lower eyes closed. “I can’t,” she breathed. “if I go there, I’ll have to, to think about it—“  
“Garnet,” Pearl said in a stern voice, “I’m going to tell you what you once told me. It’s just a thought. It can’t hurt you.”  
“You see that, right there? The butterfly?”  
Pearl followed Garnet’s shaking finger, but it pointed to nothing but empty air. “Uh… no? Garnet, are you feeling alright?”  
Garnet seemed to ignore her. “It’s a thought. And every time I look at it, another thought flies out of it, and starts showing the same thing from a different point of view, or a different possibility that might have happened. And if I look at that thought, it does the same thing, and I can feel the pain it carries to the very bottom of my self.” The other hand disentangled itself from her hair and wiped the tears away. “There are currently forty-eight of them. Forty-nine.”  
“Garnet,” Pearl protested, “there’s nothing there. I can’t see anything but empty air, and certainly no butterflies.” She shifted her weight to the other knee.  
Silence.  
“Garnet?”  
“I can hardly see anything else.”  
“Garnet?’ Pearl’s voice grew more urgent. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”  
“…”  
Pearl turned, staring her friend directly in the eyes. A note of panic had entered her tone. “Garnet? Just answer me, please.”  
Garnet finally met the other gem’s eyes. “Is Steven watching?”  
“What?” Pearl raised an eyebrow quizzically. “I don’t think so, why?”  
“I—“ she licked her lips. “I need some privacy.”  
“Garnet…”  
“Pearl.”  
Pearl started to get to her feet, but paused halfway through the motion. A moment later, Garnet felt cool arms around her, smooth as stone, as the other gem hugged her loosely. One thing worried Pearl: Garnet gave no response. “Garnet, if there’s anything I can do to help… just let me know.”  
There was a brief nod.  
“I’ll, I’ll go make sure Steven’s in bed.” Pearl beat a reluctant retreat.

 

Amethyst sat on the couch, arms folded, listening to Steven’s snores. The kid seemed pretty much oblivious, though he did seem more and more anxious about Garnet. Not that Amethyst knew what was going on, either. But Pearl was pretty obviously on the verge of freaking out, and Garnet... From what she could tell, Garnet was very quietly panicking. Everything Garnet did was quiet. Amethyst sighed. Sadly, that meant nobody would tell her what was going on, though to be fair, Pearl hadn’t known either until now. That was probably part of why P. had been freaking out so much, actually. Not knowing. But now she wasn’t acting any calmer, and it was driving Amethyst crazy how Pearl was fidgeting and muttering to herself like that. Fretting wasn’t real likely to help, after all. Right?  
She looked up. Pearl was being oddly quiet.  
“You ready to tell me what’s going on?” Amethyst asked, voice quiet for once.  
Pearl stared, knees clasped to her chest. “Do you remember that whole mess at the Kindergarten, where we lost Peridot again and Garnet and Steven went down to that room of devices?”  
“Duh. What about it, P?”  
“Well, Garnet didn’t tell us everything. Those monsters we fought, apparently they weren’t corrupted, they were fusions. Forced fusions! Gem shards, from the warriors we buried, all stuck together. Garnet—She’s, ah, upset. I don’t think she would want me to say any more than that.”  
Amethyst blinked. So this was what had Garnet so freaked? Man, she could get why, but did it really deserve this kind of major panic? Oh, she realized, but if the gem shards in the forced fusions were still conscious, whether as fusions or as individuals...  
“Does Garnet think the gems inside those things can still… you know… tell what’s going on?”  
Pearl blinked, eyes on the ground. “I believe so.”  
“Man. But now you know what’s going on, why are you still so freaked, P? There’s nothing we can do, right, so why worry about it?”  
She was silent for a moment. “Garnet said she was seeing these things, like thoughts, that looked like butterflies. There was nothing there. I’m sorry, Amethyst, I don’t know that I should be telling you all this, it’s private, I just worry about her, you understand?”  
Amethyst snorted. “Don’t you think Garnet can take care of herself?” Truth to be told, though, Pearl wasn’t the only one who was worried. A sudden thought sobered her. “Does Steven know, the poor little guy?”  
Pearl shook her head. “I don’t think so. Well, he knows what happened with the fusion monster,” she gave a nervous laugh, “but not about Garnet’s… current, ah, issues.”  
The younger gem made a snap decision. “I’m gonna go see if Garnet’s alright.”  
“That—might not be the best idea—“  
Amethyst was already out the door.  
“Garnet?” she cried. “Garne—“ Oh. Two small gems were silhouetted against the sparkling sea. Amethyst fell silent.  
Ruby’s arm clutched her counterpart’s shoulder with seeming desperation, Sapphire’s raised to her face. Even from this distance, Amethyst could faintly make out their words.   
“I—I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”  
“I should be able to control it, Ruby, I’m sorry, this shouldn’t be happening!”  
“It’s not your fault.”  
“This never should have happened.” Sapphire’s hand slipped. “I should have seen it, we should have noticed before now.”  
“I’m sorry.”


End file.
